To most people, a bridge is simply an assembly that
allows travelers to move safely across a river or gorge.
But to Christina Terpeluk, a Johns Hopkins senior from
Chestertown, Md., a bridge can be a piece of structural
art.

Christina Terpeluk
PHOTO BY WILL KIRK

Supported by an undergraduate research grant from the
university, Terpeluk has spent months studying 19th century
American iron truss bridges, trying to determine whether
they fit the definition of structural art, a concept
championed by David P. Billington, a civil engineering
scholar at Princeton. To qualify, a structure must be a
work of elegance and efficiency that showcases its
designer's engineering goals in a way that appeals to the
eye.

For her project, Terpeluk has conducted detailed
studies of three types of truss bridges built more than a
century ago. The work has required the civil engineering
major to run 21st century computer programs and pore
through fragile 19th century manuscripts. Beyond the
bridges' obvious role as transportation infrastructure,
Terpeluk has explored their social, economic and symbolic
values, trying to determine what the bridges meant to the
communities they served.

She believes her research is opening new scholarly
terrain. "There has been a lot of 'history of technology'
material written about these bridges," she said. "But there
is almost nothing about the connection between aesthetics
and engineering in them. It surprised me how much I didn't
know."

Structural art, as opposed to fine architecture, has
become an intriguing new field of study, said
Sanjay
R. Arwade, assistant professor of
civil engineering and
Terpeluk's faculty research sponsor. An architect often
designs pleasing shapes independent of the structural
skeleton of a building, Arwade said. But in a work of
structural art — the Eiffel Tower is a prime example
— the engineering is fully visible, efficiently
designed and aesthetically pleasing in its own right. "A
main idea," he said, "is that you should be able to look at
the structure and 'read' it from an engineering
standpoint."

Terpeluk's affection for bridges dates back to her
freshman year at Johns Hopkins, when an introductory class
required her to build a sturdy model bridge out of
spaghetti strands and glue. She enjoyed the experience so
much that she promptly switched her major from general
engineering to civil engineering.

Civil engineering major Christina Terpeluk is
studying 19th century
American bridges, such as this Bollman truss structure in
Savage, Md.
PHOTO BY WILL KIRK

Later, after taking a course called "Perspectives on
the Evolution of Structures," co-taught by Arwade, Terpeluk
decided to apply the structural art standard to 19th
century American iron truss bridges. Truss bridges use a
latticework of triangles to handle the forces of tension
and compression when a vehicle passes over them. After a
long period in which wooden bridges dominated the American
landscape, 19th century engineers began competing to design
more efficient, less expensive iron truss bridges,
primarily for railroads.

Terpeluk focused on three of these bridge designs
— the Whipple, Fink and Bollman trusses — and
studied examples that were built in Frederick, Md.; Hamden,
N.J.; and Savage, Md. She used a computer program to
conduct structural analyses of the bridges and employed
traditional research tools to delve into the social,
economic and symbolic background of the structures. "At the
[university's] Peabody Library, I found documents from that
time period, focusing on bridge design," she said. "It was
an awesome experience."

In addition, while completing an internship at a
London engineering firm last summer, she was able to visit
a number of truss bridges in the British Isles. That
enabled her to draw comparisons between British and
American bridges from the same period.
Terpeluk hopes to publish her findings in a peer-
reviewed journal or present them at an engineering
conference. "I've learned a lot about doing research," she
said. "It's not an easy task."

After graduating in May, she plans to attend graduate
school and prepare for a career involving the restoration
or rehabilitation of historic structures.

On March 10, Steven Knapp, university provost and
senior vice president for academic affairs, will host the
12th annual
Provost's Undergraduate Research Awards
ceremony, which honors the 45 winners who conducted their
projects in the summer and fall of 2004. Since 1993, about
40 students each year have received PURA grants of up to
$3,000 to conduct original research, some results of which
have been published in professional journals. The awards,
funded through a donation from the Hodson Trust, are an
important part of the university's commitment to research
opportunities for undergraduates.

The Johns Hopkins University is recognized as the
country's first graduate research university, and has been
in recent years the leader among the nation's research
universities in winning federal research and development
grants. The opportunity to be involved in important
research is one of the distinguishing characteristics of an
undergraduate education at Johns Hopkins.

The Provost's Undergraduate Research Awards program
provides one of these research opportunities, open to
students in each of the university's four schools with
full-time undergraduates: the Krieger School of Arts and
Sciences, the Whiting School of Engineering, the Peabody
Conservatory and the School of Nursing.

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